Europe is cutting off drugs US needs for letal injection to get US to stop the practice

[Maraya1969]

I was not aware that around the world other people are fighting to stop the barbaric death penalty system in the US. Now that one drug supplier is no longer available in the US another one in Europe will not sell the drug to the country.

It feels good knowing that you are not alone in the world.

[3waygeek]

1. Of course, all that means is

that some company will start making those drugs here. Then they'll put out all kinds of press releases & tv spots about how they're creating jobs in America.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I don't understand how this would hinder executions here.

There are plenty of drugs that will kill a person. Why not simply inject a fatal dose of morphine? I guess this is just a stand on principle for the Europeans.

[lunatica]

5. A stand on principle may be the only way to state your opposition to some activities

If it helps get your message across then it's part of a solution. It has us talking about it doesn't it?

[Puregonzo1188]

16. Watch the video. Other drug combinations have been considered unconstitutional.

While I doubt this will end this barbaric affront to human rights being carried out in our own country, given how restricted the process has been by courts that realize its cruelty, but our too cowardly to just outlaw completely (which the Supreme Court did fyi in the 1970s) this would be a major monkey wrench in America's machinery of death.

[LuvNewcastle]

18. I saw it.

They said that in order to administer lethal injection, they had to have a drug that would put the person to sleep. Morphine would do that. The person could be given a dose strong enough to put him to sleep and then it could be gradually increased until the heart stops. My grandfather died that way and if I could choose how I die, death by morphine would be my choice. I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but if it's going to be used they should choose the least painful way to do it. They would have to use something else on those allergic to morphine, of course.

[CTyankee]

3. well, we could bring back old fashioned hangings...

aargh, I shouldn't have even thought it...but I am getting so jaded about this country. The civilized world thinks we are barbarians...

[lunatica]

4. And we are barbarians as far as the death penalty goes

[MichaelMcGuire]

6. K&R

[IamK]

7. If not by injection, execute them in the same way they killed their victims....

If they were not murders, "spin a wheel" of death kinda like the wheel on price is right.....
seems so simple....

[Maraya1969]

10. That is the kind of heinous attitude toward killing people that makes the rest

of us embarrassed to be Americans.

Bomb this country, kill these people, spin a wheel and find your death penalty day activities.

I find it all sick.

[moriah]

14. Personally I agree with him, IF we could be sure they were murderers.

We cannot let people who will unlawfully take a life walk the streets, to protect society. Theoretically, it would save the system money to execute rather than keep them alive and away from society. And a person who takes a life has in effect forfeited his own.

But the justice system is flawed. Whites don't get the death penalty as often as people of color even for the same heinous nature of the crime. 100 people wrongly convicted was 100 too many when they first hit that number of DNA exonerations, and more wrongful convictions have been uncovered since. And the fight to keep the death penalty despite all of those issues -- allowing an appeals process that wastes tons of money just so that we can kill a few murderers -- means that we spend more to execute a person than we do to keep them in jail the rest of their lives. And there is no evidence that there is any deterrent value.

So even if I'm not morally horribly offended by the DP, I'm intellectually offended.

[Maraya1969]

19. You can keep them off the street by putting them in jail.

I cannot believe that the difference between that and death is not vengeance.

[moriah]

20. Escapees. Which is more cruel, instant death or solitary confinement/supermax?

Most child killers/rapists can't be housed in General Population anyway, not because of their own violent tendencies, but because of the violence of the other prisoners toward them. But many death row prisoners are significant escape risks.

We'd put an animal out of its misery rather than make it suffer.

[Maraya1969]

22. Take a poll of the ones on death row about that. The very few

that seem to actually feel that way go through the process quickly, like Timothy McVeigh

[liberalhistorian]

17. Why do we kill people who kill people

to show that killing people is wrong?

[RC]

8. Why do we feel the need to kill so many people

Both at home and abroad.

Read the replies so far. Is this DU or FR?

[pipi_k]

9. Nice try, but...

they're being awfully naive if they think they're going to stop the death penalty in the states where it's almost a way of life.

OK...no lethal injections.

Big deal. They'll just go back to some other method. Firing squad. Electric chair. Gas chamber. Maybe they'll even use the guillotine.

The death penalty itself has to be the target...not the method of carrying it out.

[MichaelMcGuire]

11. The rationale

I'd guess is the EU member states plays no part in it.

[NYC Liberal]

12. Yes, but if they can't change the system, the next best thing is

to not be responsible for any part of it. I agree with what they're doing.

[MichaelMcGuire]

13. It also highlights

Our attitude and feelings towards it.

[Puregonzo1188]

15. Good. Capital punishment is such a sickening and barbaric violation of human rights, and with the US

masquerading across the globe as some sort of moral force on human rights, it's about time we face some sort of sanctions for what we do.

[roamer65]

21. I can see the death penalty in only a very, very, very few cases.

In 99% of the capital offense cases in America, it should not even be an option. There have simply been too many innocent people found on death rows.

[hifiguy]

23. The only place where the death penalty should be available

is for crimes against humanity and war crimes - think the Nuremberg trials. It should never be used otherwise.